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Jeremy Moskowitz's landmark book on Group Policy has been fully revised, and this revision (Revision 5) now offers many chapters as eBook downloads. This eBook chapter is entitled ¿Advanced Group Policy Management (AGPM)¿ and is part of a larger series of chapters from his book, Group Policy Fundamentals, Security, and Troubleshooting. In this chapter, you¿ll learn how to use the extra ¿Advanced Group Policy Management¿ tool (AGPM) from Microsoft and utilize it to make a full change management system around GPOs. The goal of the AGPM is to help companies with the challenge of GPO management. Have you ever noticed that there's no "Are you sure you really want to do this?" inside the GPMC and Group Policy Editors? Everything in Group Policy editors happens in real time. If you make a mistake, there's no "Group Policy Undo" short of disabling or deleing the GPO and hoping you only have a few people to clean up. So, specifically, AGPM it puts a "change management" system around Group Policy within the GPMC. This lets some people request changes, others make editing choices, and others approve their changes. AGPM is involved with ensuring that your overall "philosophy" of Group Policy management is done right. It's meant to ensure GPOs are configured right (before they're placed into production), reduce the risk of Group Policy deployment errors and ensure that Group Policy management is done securely. And it's a really cool tool. Which is why Microsoft is making you pay extra for it. Right now, if you want to use AGPM the rules are very clear: you need to be an SA customer and you must be willing to buy the entire MDOP package for several dollars per seat (usually $10 US.). There are four big things you get with the MDOP package, and AGPM is just one of them. (We talk about the other really big one in the companion book, Implementing the Secure Managed Desktop, when we talk about SoftGrid.) So, I recognize that this chapter isn't for everyone. It's for customers who are willing to pony up money after they've already ponied up money to become an SA customer. But AGPM is a great addition to what's possible in Group Policy land, so we'll explore what it has to offer. And again, who knows. Maybe someday AGPM will be freely available to all Windows customers. If you've got AGPM, flirting with implementing AGPM or just curious about AGPM -- this chapter is for you. Get signed hardcopies and learn more about this book and its companion book Creating the Secure Managed Desktop at www.GPanswers.com/book. At GPanswers.com, you¿ll also find supplemental downloads for these chapters as well as any downloadables for each chapter. Join the GPanswers.com newsletter list for news and updates.